University Librarieshttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/1
Libraries at George Mason University

2018-02-17T01:43:06ZKnowledge Visualization in a Musicology Seminar Using Scalar 2http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10831
Knowledge Visualization in a Musicology Seminar Using Scalar 2
Gerber, Steven K.
A graduate-level, advanced-topics-in-music-history seminar at Mason in Spring 2017 focused on several works, themes, trends, and genres related to British and American musical theater from the 1860s to the 1930s. A special feature of the course was the construction of a shared-knowledge base comprising several student-written and –reported summaries of scholarly literature produced by others as well as detailed abstracts of their own course-related final research projects. The instructor devised a way of storing, connecting, and displaying the various components of the knowledge base through a controlled vocabulary of descriptors (“tags”) using the Scalar 2 digital publishing platform.
The resulting interactive product not only enabled the retrieval of literature summaries for inspection and study but also the visualization of (and the tracing of connections between) theatrical and literary works, topical themes, works-creators (i.e. authors, composers, librettists, producers), significant dates, and perhaps most importantly, the positioning of each student’s own research work in musical theater history within this web of relationships.
More broadly, the project demonstrates the applicability of Scalar 2 (which requires no special knowledge of programming or scripting) to a variety of teaching and learning scenarios wherein content (text and media), tagged with multiple descriptors, can be traversed via multiple paths in a visually interactive online medium. While this use of Scalar as a prototype was configured and populated by the instructor, input and comment by authorized multiple contributors is also a powerful option.
Research poster describing the use of a visualization tool to illustrate connections between student-written literature summaries in a seminar on British and American musical theater history.
2017-09-22T00:00:00ZThe Classic, Irish Beethoven! Five Folksong Settingshttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/10830
The Classic, Irish Beethoven! Five Folksong Settings
Gerber, Steven K
Among Ludwig van Beethoven’s lesser-known works in the smaller forms are several volumes of folksong settings. Edinburgh music publisher George Thomson, gambling on demand from domestic musicians in the British Isles and the marketability of anything to which Beethoven’s celebrity name was attached, commissioned arrangements of several sets of traditional Scottish, English, Welsh, and Irish folk songs. Seven albums of these song settings were published without opus numbers between 1810 and 1820, scored as vocal solos or duets with piano trio (i.e., violin, cello, and piano). In many cases Thomson provided Beethoven with only the melodies without their English- (or Gaelic-) language texts (which Beethoven might not have understood in any case; indeed, their correspondence was in French). Additionally, Thomson typically commissioned (or appropriated) new words for the old songs, and Beethoven rather enjoyed this new link to the poems of Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and other admired literary figures, whether he could read them or not.
The Irish tunes in particular seemed to fascinate Beethoven, for he arranged over 60 of these, far more than the English, Scottish, and Welsh songs in these collections. In spite of Thomson’s insistence that the accompaniments be easy enough for amateurs, Beethoven did not simplify the technical requirements, and while not virtuosic, the piano parts especially demand skilled and sensitive musicianship, inasmuch the settings are quite artful. The melodies are often modal in musical character and typically of 12 or 16 measures in length, some of 20 or 24 measures, few as long as 32 measures. For these, Beethoven carefully constructed introductions and codettas that often doubled their lengths. His challenge was to preserve the modal and folk-like qualities of the melodies while harmonizing them with classical tonalities and enhancing them with evocative accompanying motives.
The five Irish folksongs presented here, as a medley for an ensemble of modest size, are just a small sampling from a treasury of these gemlike miniatures—which, to Thomson’s chagrin, did not sell particularly well. The source used was Breitkopf and Härtel’s 19th-century edition of Beethovens Werke, vols. 258, 261, and 262 (freely available online at International Music Score Library Project, or IMSLP). The songs are:
WoO 154, No. 8 - “Save Me From the Grave and Wise” (William Smyth)
WoO 152, No. 18 - “They Bid Me Slight My Dermot Dear” (William Smyth)
WoO 153, No. 19 - “Judy, Lovely, Matchless Creature” (Alexander Boswell)
WoO 152, No. 1 - “The Return to Ulster” (Sir Walter Scott)
WoO 153, No. 3 - “The British Light Dragoons” (Sir Walter Scott)
The opening stanzas only for each appear after the last page of this score.
The tempo indications here differ slightly from Thomson’s indications to Beethoven, and all metronome suggestions are the arranger’s. Although conceived for instrumental performance, these could also be presented with a vocal soloist after consulting the above sources, marking up relevant sections to repeat desired verses, and rebalancing dynamics as needed. I’d like to think that these could alternatively be danced as balletic vignettes.
Chamber orchestra arrangement of a medley of five of Beethoven's Irish folksongs, first performed by George Mason University Symphony Orchestra on October 19, 2016 under the direction of Dr. Dennis Layendecker.
2016-10-19T00:00:00ZFanfare for Thirty in Thirtyhttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/10829
Fanfare for Thirty in Thirty
Gerber, Steven K
Invited to compose a celebratory piece of symphonic music in honor of Reston Community Orchestra's 30th anniversary, but directed that it be no longer than 40 seconds in duration, I produced this very short work, premiered on November 11, 2017 in Reston, VA. It can be thought of as a purely aural "commercial" for the orchestra, presenting musical ideas in very distilled form.
2017-11-11T00:00:00ZMentoring Novice Music Editors, Or, How I Spent My Summer with Old Manuscripts and New Softwarehttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/10783
Mentoring Novice Music Editors, Or, How I Spent My Summer with Old Manuscripts and New Software
Gerber, Steven
A music technology/composition professor and a music librarian/musicologist mentored a small team of undergraduates at George Mason University in a grant-funded research project that involved editing music manuscripts held at the Library of Congress. The music was composed by Mannheim cellist and conductor Peter Ritter (1763-1846). During the ten weeks of the project, students were paid to inspect manuscripts or microfilm facsimiles and select particular scores to transcribe and edit for modern performance. Edited scores and parts were converted to PDF files and uploaded to International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) for world-wide open-access, and representative selections of chamber music were publicly performed at a summer’s end celebration of student research. Sophomore and junior music majors, some with limited background and experience, learned to use notation software, decipher musical handwriting and shorthand from an earlier period, investigate related biographical and historical matters, learn about performance practices, plan a short concert, coach performers, exhibit personal research processes and findings, and make meaningful contributions to a major digital repository of past repertoire.
Paper given at a joint conference of Atlantic and Greater New York Chapters of Music Library Association at Rutgers University October 13-14, 2017.
2017-10-13T00:00:00Z